Nice Things
by Bread Head
Summary: "Dogs will play with anything they can get their paws on if you don't teach them otherwise... But good dogs know know better than to play with nice things."


HI okay so. I've been writing ff here for a while but my account broke so here we are with this test run on my new account. This is just something that's been in my WIP folder for like a millenium. Not my usual fandom BUT it was babys first OTP so it has a special place in my heart obviously. ENJOY

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><p><strong>Nice Things<strong>

x - x - x

The water was bone cold, but with the air as stale as it was this morning the temperature of the river was refreshing. Still, an involuntary shiver passed over Kagome as she splashed her face again and droplets found their way down her chest and back. She set about removing her shoes so she could dip her legs in at the edge. With Shippo out chasing bugs and her other friends still fast asleep they wouldn't be going anywhere for awhile yet. Might as well enjoy the leisure time while she could.

"Fishing?"

"What, with my toes?" she answered sarcastically without turning around. Honestly, did it look like she was fishing?

"Don't gotta be a bitch about it."

"Oh sit down," she sighed with a mite of irritation laced into her tone, and tugged heavily on his pants. It was too early in the day to start arguing over trivial things. Plenty time for that later.

Inuyasha fell into a crouch beside her, and she could feel his usual unabashed stare focusing in on her.

"Rel_ax." _She tugged on his sleeve, destabilizing him till he gave in and sat down all the way. "Come on, dip your feet in, the water feels great."

He growled almost inaudibly, but instead of arguing he pushed the hem of his pants up and threw his legs into the water with a splash that narrowly missed soaking her skirt. The willowy underwater reeds swirled around her legs as the river settled back into its flow, tickling her skin, raising goosebumps.

"Not so bad, huh?" Kagome leaned forward and splashed some water onto her face again, scattering the shimmering minnows that had begun to laze in circles around her calves. She flipped her wet hair back over her shoulder, sorely missing her shampoo. It had been a week now since she'd run out of the stuff, and the state of her hair was suffering. Unfortunately the company that manufactured it wouldn't be founded for hundreds of years.. ah, well.

An idle thought struck her. As it hit, she snuck a sideways glance at him and found it odd that she'd never really wondered before. Was her scent _altered_ to Inuyasha due to the lack of it? He was always going on about the scent of everything, especially hers. _You smell kind of nice._ Heat crept into her cheeks as it always did when she remembered the only time he'd actively complimented the way she smelled. She tucked the distant, fond memory back into its drawer.

"It's nice. I guess."

Kagome caught herself before she giggled, but just barely. It was too funny, the way he'd inadvertently reflected the memory with his childish way of understating what he meant when he was reluctant to admit it. Leaning back onto her hands, she contented herself with ignoring his early morning grumpiness. He'd get over it soon enough. Better for everyone if she threw sand on the coals instead of tinder. The rising sun was muted orange against her closed eyelids.

She pursed her lips. Maybe something like a lack of her regular shampoo wouldn't be enough to actually alter a person's scent drastically. Of course _she_ could smell the difference easily, but her range of smell was so much smaller than his. Able to perceive scents far beyond a human's spectrum, would such a subtle change on a large scale even catch his notice? She hummed to herself about it curiously, frowning in concentration. It was an interesting question, but it's not as if she would just ask him if-

"Kagome, stop thinking so hard. It's already late as fuck and if you go and hurt yourself and then we'll get even less done today."

Her eyes snapped open and she regarded him with a cold glare, which had him immediately blanching, that wide eyed look of resigned expectancy on his face. She rarely even had to follow the glare with the word "sit" anymore. He'd been freaking Pavlov'd into submission by the look itself. It was so rich she could bust a gut laughing, but she decided to spare him. Again: too early in the day for trouble. They were supposed to get a long way from here by dark and it wouldn't do to get him all riled up now and have to be "sitting" him once every mile for the entire day.

Still, she did laugh at the scarcely disguised look of relief when he realized the word "sit" wasn't going to come. But his relief was almost immediately replaced by a scowl, and a show of crossed arms and legs being retracted from the water. "What the fuck're you concentrating on so intently anyway? You don't have another _test_ coming up do you?" he added brusquely, with the tone of _if you say yes I'm probably going to push you into the river_.

First thought urged her to say yes just to annoy him. Second thought reminded her that she was legitimately curious, so instead of opting for choice one she simply fessed up. "Actually... I was wondering, Inuyasha."

His ears perked, flicking toward her the way they always would when she'd caught his attention. Even when he kept his arms folded and his head turned away, like he had them now. His ears always betrayed him. She got a kick out of it, as usual. As wild and walled off as Inuyasha was, in some aspects he would always be incredibly predictable and easy to read.

"It's silly, really," she admitted. "I was just curious. Does my scent smell any different to you?"

The mood immediately shifted - Inuyasha tensed next to her, the fingers of his right hand twitching subconsciously as they always did at the slightest hint of danger, as though itching to grip tight the handle on his Tetsaiga. "What? Why?" The unmasked alarm in his eyes floored her momentarily. "What happened?" He was suddenly an inch from her, sniffing around her, and her hands slipped from under her and skidded on the rough pebbles as she leaned frantically away from him. "Kagome, what happened!"

"Inuyasha!" she spat out, throwing her palms against his shoulders and forcing space between them. She was unsure whether to be amused, confused, or just plain embarrassed. "Nothing happened, for the love of god. Calm down."

"I don't - Dont freak me out like that, then, you stupid idiot. Why would you smell different if nothing happened?" He was regarding her like one does a psych patient. Heat was creeping back into her cheeks, and she began to feel very foolish.

"I was only asking because I ran out of that strawberry shampoo I always use." She ran her fingers through her wet hair. "I thought I might smell different to you than I normally do since I haven't been using it."

With annoyance she found the heat wouldn't leave her cheeks, and he was furrowing his eyebrows at her and - damn it all, it was not _that_ dumb of a question! "Come on!" she fumed. "Don't look at me like that, it's a fair question! What if I got - got kidnapped or lost or something and you couldn't track me down because I smelled different! _What?" _she ground out, furious to realize he had begun to laugh.

"You're so fucking stupid," he snickered, throwing his legs back into the water with a loud splash. "I can't believe that's what you were thinking so hard about."

"I'm not stupid, don't make me _sit_ you, Inuyasha-! Oh, oh no, I'm sorry..." But her halfhearted apology for letting his least favorite word slip petered out as he continued laughing from where he'd been smacked down flat against the riverside, legs limply dangling into the water. "I'm not stupid!"

He paused his laughter, gasping for breath, and managed to say, "You thought something like _that_ would change your _scent_ to me. You gotta be the dumbest miko to ever-"

"SIT!"

But after groaning and moaning for a grand total of five seconds, he went on laughing to himself. "I mean for fucks sake Kagome, if something as small as that could change it I'd never be able to find you."

"So what, I smell exactly the same?" she deadpanned. "You can't even smell the difference at all? Some nose _you_ have, then. Even _mine_ is better than yours." And she turned her nose up at him rudely as the spell began to wear off and he started attempting to push himself up.

"Of course I can smell the difference, moron. It's just not that big a difference. What the hell would I do if your scent up and changed on me every damn time you felt like bringing home a new crazy flavor of shampoo whenever you had the whim? I'd have to relearn your scent once a month!"

Her scowl deepened. "I don't switch shampoo that often."

Inuyasha gave her a condescending withering look that said very plainly _are you kidding me? _"Yeah, you do. You'd only been wearing that one since last time you went back to your era!" Mentally she counted back the days on her hands, aligning the memory with the last time she'd visited home, and remembered that she had in fact returned with the strawberry shampoo that time. She paused. He remembered that?

She opened her mouth to retort. And closed it again. All her sassy replies and been washed downstream, it seemed.

What _else_ did he keep track of?

"Oi, what?" he complained, fidgeting under her stare.

"I'm just surprised, is all," she admitted.

His ears twitched as if to dislodge a fly and he closed his eyes. "Kagome I can smell _everything_. I know who's touched you and what you've been eating and how long till your next - " His eyes shot open and he ground his teeth together. "Seriously, you know all this already! How are you _surprised_?"

"Well sometimes I forget, it's not as if I can smell all that stuff," she told him haughtily. "And you never talk in depth about it. I didn't realize you kept _track_ of it."

"I don't keep track," he huffed, averting his face from hers. "I just notice. You'd notice too if you could smell everything about people from what they had for dinner yesterday down to their hormone levels."

"Hormone... levels." To her credit, she managed to keep her tone at a moderately non-squeaky volume.

Luckily Inuyasha seemed to have completely missed her discomfort, or else was ignoring it. "Yep."

She clenched her fists in front of her, wishing to sit him ten more times. He was being so rude! "So if you can smell so damn much about me, how come you laughed so hard when I asked if I smell different? According to you, I must smell different every minute of the damn day!"

He turned that withering pitying look on her again, like she was a poor misinformed foolish fool. She nearly slapped him to wipe it off but then he responded, "None of that stuff is your smell though, idiot. It's just like... Side stuff."

"Side stuff," she repeated dumbly.

"Uh, yeah." He intoned it the way Souta might intone his favorite word: "duh."

"Side stuff? I don't..."

He growled, clearly becoming agitated with her for not understanding. "It's like... On those things you bring home from Tokyo, the ones your mom makes, the flat ones."

"...Cookies?" she tried, trying to remember the last time she'd brought them. That had been forever ago!

"Yeah, whatever," he brushed off. "It's like those things. She puts all sortsa little weird things on them that don't taste like anything."

"What... Are you talking about sprinkles?" _How_ had they strayed so far from the subject?

"Yeah, sure, _whatever_," he growled with ever increasing annoyance, "it's like sprinkles. Point is, it doesn't matter _what_ fuckin kind you put on there, it ain't gonna change the taste of the cookie."

"..._Oh_."

It clicked, then. Simply.

She stared at him for a moment, completely shocked that Inuyasha of all people had managed to express something with perfect clarity, and he had done so with an analogy. This was one for the history books. When they wrote the legend of her life, some critic would later would look at this moment and say "there's no way in hell that really happened." Turning back toward the river she found she suddenly had nothing to say.

"Hey, you got a... Hold still."

Her still wet hair brushed against her neck and she opened one eye to see Inuyasha's hand just centimeters from her skin. She froze.

And shrieked, as the tips of his claws brushed her neck lightly, causing her to cringe away at Mach speed.

The look plastered on his face was a mixture of shock, hurt, confusion, and (overwhelmingly) amusement. He slowly narrowed his eyes and his lips melted into a smirk as he held aloft a wet lump of dark green. "It was just a bit of algae," he snorted. "The heck is your problem?"

Kagome flushed magenta, her hand pressed defensively to the side of her neck. "I'm just ticklish, that's all." Oh god, how _embarrassing_. That noise she'd just made... He was not gonna let her forget that.

"Ticklish?" His eyes glinted malevolently. He threw the algae away, into the middle of the river where it was swallowed and swept downstream.

"Yes," she confirmed haughtily. "I'm ticklish. Big deal."

"Well, you've got a bit more algae..." She raised her hands, seriously doubting his claim, ready to slap his annoying hand away with no mercy but his claws were already at her neck and he had that stupid triumphant sneaky look in his eyes again, like a dog that had gotten ahold of a toy it knew full well it wasn't supposed to play with. "Don't do that," he warned, "or I might accidentally cut your throat out."

"Inuyasha!" she clipped, much louder than she'd meant to. "You prick! You would _not_."

"Okay, okay," he admitted, but the grin didn't go away and neither did his hand. She almost shrieked as the tips of his claws slid across her skin, sending spasming alarm signals through her nerves. She nearly flailed to get away from the sensation. "But I _might _accidentally slice your hair off if you move, and I know you don't really need that so I won't be too careful."

Kagome made the most undignified 'eep' noise she'd ever made as the tickling moved onto the back of her neck beneath her hair. Of all the rotten lousy - he was just trying to get a rise out of her! So much for starting the day off pleasantly. He was such an ass sometimes. Wait, _sometimes_? Who was she kidding - "Stop!" she squeaked, all her muscles cringing inward as he made it to the other side of her neck and goosebumps rippled down her right arm. "Inuyasha stop it -"

She could feel him shaking with silent laughter. The word "SIT" was on the tip of her tongue again but she knew if she shouted that right now he actually _might_ cut her neck, and then no one would win. It was very hard not to say it. It tickled _so badly_. In fact, she was so distracted by restraining herself from using her well-worn trump card that she almost didn't notice when it stopped tickling.

She didn't notice until it had gone from feeling like nothing much to feeling.. kind of good. His claws had strayed away from the other side of her neck down across her clavicle. Leave it to Inuyasha to be utterly clueless about where a person would be ticklish. He didn't seem to realize how far he'd strayed from torturing her until his claws brushed softly down the side of her arm farthest from him and she actually sighed, leaning an nth of a degree further into his body. That felt _really_ good.

It was his turn to freeze.

His hand was all the way down at her elbow now, his arm wrapped around her back, with her leaning into the crook he'd made. The realization of what had happened seemed to come down on him all at once and he became rigid, retracting his hand from her arm, trying to retreat without making his defeat more obvious than it already was.

He was such a big baby! Kagome nearly laughed but thought better of it, splashing her feet in the water instead. She refused to move, as she had gotten quite comfortable where she was. He brought this on himself, anyway. His discomfort was palpable. But it brought her a vindictive kind of satisfaction, the same way tickling her had for him. Now, she was the winner. She waited for his discomfort to max out and for him to flee from under her. But to her everlasting shock his tensed arm relaxed again. His hand fell back into the bend of her elbow. He kicked one leg out, scattering the regathered minnows again.

Apparently, _shockingly_, he wasn't going to call her bluff. His claw brushed the inside of her arm again and she exhaled lightly.

"That doesn't tickle there?"

She wondered what to make of his featherweight tone of voice. It was infinitely more indecipherable than usual.

"No," she admitted. Her head settled back on his shoulder. He kept any complaints about how wet her hair was to himself.

"How about there?" He was onto the soft inner side of her forearm now.

She shivered. "No."

"You're _cold_?" he asked incredulously. "It's freakin hot outside -"

"No," she laughed, "no. I'm not cold, I'm just... It's funny." She knew he probably wouldn't find it funny, but she did. "That feels good, actually." It was then that she realized he wasn't listening, he was smelling the side of her neck again. He always did that when she even remotely implied something was off about her - apparently her shiver had alarmed him into thinking something was wrong.

"So what _do_ I smell like, Inuyasha?" she prompted, causing him to pull his face away sharply. What, did he think he was being discreet or something? "You know, without all the side stuff."

"That's another stupid question," he retorted, but as if he needed to remind himself before he answered he leaned down toward her again, pressing his face unceremoniously past her hair where it pooled on her shoulder to sniff at her. "You smell like _Kagome_."

She giggled, despite herself. What a stupid answer. "But what does that _smell_ _like_? Ugh no.. Never mind. I don't know what I expected."

She sighed loudly to herself, exasperated. At least his answer wasn't something disappointing, like something unpleasant, or - her sigh caught in her throat as he exhaled slowly on the skin of her neck, having still not pulled away. The heat of it on her skin had an _immediate _effect, especially with the way she was leaned up against him like this, with his fingers on her other arm... A sweeping feeling fluttered through her abdomen, sinking into her toes, leaving her feeling flushed and lightheaded, and hyper-aware of every space on her body that was currently pressed against Inuyasha's: her back, her thigh, her elbow, her head, and her _neck_ where he was _breathing_.

Of course she immediately flushed crimson at her body's response, knowing he could probably hear her quickened heartbeat, that he could - oh, god, didn't he say he could smell _hormones.._? And there it was, confirmation of her fears, in the form of the muscles in Inuyasha's arm stiffening ever so slightly , as if he'd just noticed something.

A shaky breath escaped her as she tried to reign in her traitorous body. Her heartbeats, her.. her hormones, or whatever was causing that tight feeling in the pit of her stomach that got a little tighter with every breath. But the more she tried to tone down her reaction, the more flustered she grew, the more embarrassed she got, and the closer Inuyasha's damn breath got to her skin. _Dammit, you know what I smell like already! _she thought at him, horrified. She could die from the embarrassment. Quickly she tried to squirm away, as comfortable as she was, completely positive now that Inuyasha could smell whatever hormone changes happened in her body when he had that effect on her. But he locked his arm in place, disallowing her movement.

If she wasn't mistaken, she could hear the faintest of growls deep in his chest as he pulled her taut against his side, pressing his face unabashedly against her skin. Why wouldnt he let go? Why hadn't he thrown her off him and started to laugh when the butterflies had flooded her? She was so sure her scent must have spiked like crazy - then she found herself wondering, wildly: how many times had she felt like that when he touched her? Maybe not at all at when she first knew him.. But lately? A hundred times? A thousand? And every time he must have known just exactly what she was thinking. He had to have _known_...

Her frantic thoughts were scattered like the river minnows when his mouth moved against the soft skin of her neck, his lips parting slightly. She could feel the low growl in his chest now, rumbling against her back like a distant earthquake.

Kagome seized up.

All she could focus on was the little patch of skin on her neck. It was like tunnel vision. There was the faintest of pricking sensations as his teeth brushed against her, barely hard enough for her to be sure they were even there. Hot breath escaped through his teeth onto her skin again and she had been about to bravely say _what the hell are you doing? _But instead, out spilled an accidental whispered word, almost a gasp, barely articulated. "_Inuyasha?_"

The growl waned, until presently it was more a whine. Nearly inaudible. Sad and forlorn and so, so quiet. Never had she heard him make a sound like that, not even when he was wounded. He was making the sound of a chained dog.

Frankly, it frightened her. "I- Inuyasha?" Kagome repeated, a little less weakly.

The light brush of his teeth, the press of his mouth, the breath, it was all gone all at once, and he was sniffing her hair again, as if nothing had happened at all. "Nice," he answered so belatedly she almost forgot what she'd asked. His voice was subdued. Kagome tried to turn to look at him, wanting to know what had just happened, but she found she couldn't turn her head with his face pressed in against her hair like that. "That's what you smell like. Really, really... nice."

And then he left her, with a sweep of red fabric and a splash of water. She was alone by the river, as if he'd never come.

And Kagome was left to fester on what had just transpired. On that noise Inuyasha had made as he brushed his teeth against her skin. She'd felt so much anticipation in that moment, had even briefly entertained the notion he may actually bite her. Had he... wanted to? His whine rang in her ears and she splashed water on her face again, more to drown out the sound in her memory than to splash some sense into herself.

She stared moodily at the minnows in the water, wanting to delay her return to camp as long as possible, busying her mind with thoughts about her mother's cookies to distract herself, and wishing now like she so often did that she could turn to her mom for advice. But, unduly, from under the remembered taste of sprinkled sugar cookies, her mother's face from a much older memory surfaced.

She had been scolding Kagome that day, for letting her new puppy run amok in the house and not training it properly. Kagome soured at the memory, wondering why that of all memories had to rear its ugly head. But as it came into sharper focus, she immediately began to understand why this of all memories had dragged itself up out of the depths, and Kagome scowled at her mother inwardly, acknowledging that in some abstract way her mom was here with light to shed on the subject. She could still remember the avid attention she'd paid her mother after the stern lecture, when she'd calmed down about the brand new yet freshly chewed up sofa cushions, and her mom's expression had finally softened.

_Come here, Kagome, _she had said, _I'm not angry. But you need to learn something about dogs if you ever want to keep one. Dogs will play with anything they can get their paws on if you don't teach them otherwise. _She had paused here, looking to Kagome with emphasis. Her eyes had said 'remember this.' _But_ good _dogs know know better than to play with nice things_.

Kagome pressed both hands to her cheeks, desperately covering the blush no one was around to see. Inuyasha's quiet but insistent whine came back to her again, clear as the shallow water before her. She could pinpoint it now: the reason why the sound tugged at her heart so.

It was the sound a dog made when it wanted something it knew it couldn't have.


End file.
